


all roads lead here

by justanexercise



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator Dark Fate, Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 07:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanexercise/pseuds/justanexercise
Summary: No matter how hard Dani tries, fate is running its course.To that she says, Fuck Fate.
Relationships: Grace & Dani Ramos, Grace/Dani Ramos
Comments: 31
Kudos: 331





	all roads lead here

Dani trains.

Dani trains as if her life depends on it.

As if the fate of humankind depends on it.

So she works her body to the limit, and pushes past it.

She learns to fight. She learns how to use weapons. She learns how to scavenge. She learns about engineering. She learns about biology.

It’s not going to be enough. She only has a few years until the new judgment day.

Dani only has a few years to learn to become the woman that Grace depended on. That saves Grace.

This time. Dani is going to save Grace.

With every punch, every shot, every thought, she thinks _for Grace_.

\---

They’re on a routine supply run, just at the market down the block from their home base, when everything stops.

Dani’s standing in line behind a teenage boy, cursing at the card reader as he presses his phone against it to pay for his chips and soda.

“Do you have any cash?” the attendant asks, brows furrowed as she sees a blank error screen on her register.

“No,” the boy mutters.

“Here,” Dani offers behind him, handing a $100 over to the girl. “I got it.”

The boy frowns. “No it’s okay.”

“You’re going to need it,” Dani says, eyes fierce. She grips his shoulder. “It’s on me.”

The boy mutters a thanks, shrugging her hand off him and takes his food. The attendant fiddles with the register, still unable to do anything.

“Keep the change,” Dani says. She leaves.

At the truck, Sarah loads up the last gas canisters to the back.

“It’s starting,” Dani says, looking passed her, at the dead traffic lights, the few thankfully minor car crashes at the sparse intersection. Everyone’s got their phones out, fiddling with them, trying to make them work.

“Yup,” Sarah says, with a wry smile. “Good thing I got the pump going.” She gestures to the back, all loaded up with canisters.

Dani nods. She calculates in her head, the mileage needed.

“Dani,” Sarah says, voice low, knowing. “Dani, we only have three days—“

“That’s enough time.”

“She survives.”

Dani grits her teeth, fists clenched. “We don’t know that. Not for sure. The future—“

“There won’t be one if you get yourself killed.”

Dani turns, eyes blazing. Unwavering. Sarah doesn’t give an inch back either.

Sirens start blaring around them, emergency vehicles, cops, anyone who is supposed to be helping.

“God damn it,” Sarah huffs, taking a step back. “Fine but I’m driving.”

Dani lets out a rare smile, tossing the keys to Sarah.

They’ve got two days to get to Grace, two days before the nukes come.

\---

They don’t’ make it in time.

Maybe Grace had been wrong in her timeline.

It had been traumatic after all.

But the nukes come just after the first day.

They barely make it in time to shelter.

Dani grieves.

For the world.

For Grace.

She hopes Grace made it.

She has to.

\---

Dani is better off this time, she thinks. This time she’s prepared, with Sarah.

People still starve. Billions still die.

And Dani still fights.

It takes a few months to start her crew. A few here and there, and some she fights until they submit, until they recognize a leader among them.

With every person she saves, she hopes. This time, it will be Grace.

Every night, she sits on the floor, mourning, hoping.

For Grace.

\---

Sarah dies a year into judgment day.

It starts with a cold that she never manages to shake off. Then pneumonia.

Dani tries her hardest to get meds, to get the few doctors left to treat her.

Sarah waves it off.

“Fuck it. Thought I’d always go down with a terminator,” Sarah says. “You think Legion even has them?”

Dani holds her hand until the end.

Her last remnant to the old world.

\---

Dani hears the scuffle first. She waves at her soldiers to stand down. There are too many of legions crafts hovering above scouting for them.

They need to be quiet.

She goes in, alone.

Three against one.

Hardly fair.

To them.

She takes them down, easily.

Almost daring the last guy to shoot her, to get them all killed.

Of course he doesn’t, as much scum as he is for beating up a kid, he’s trying to survive as long as he can in this wasteland.

Dani kneels, seeing the boy, a knife still his hand.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Dani asks, smiling, disarming.

“Grace.”

Dani shakes.

“Grace.” Dani pulls down her hood.

It is Grace.

Same mop of hair, cut haphazardly. The same eyes.

Dani holds out her hand.

This time, she’ll protect Grace.

This time, Grace won’t die for her.

\---

Dani tries to stay away.

Maybe if she keeps Grace at an arms distance, situate her at a safer camp, then Grace would never become a soldier. She won’t ever have to save her.

Grace won’t leave. She sneaks off the transport every single damn time.

Dani mutters that she’s such a goddamn idiot.

“Come on, let’s get you a bunk.”

Grace smiles, a spring in her step as she walks next to Dani.

Dani notes, that Grace is only a head taller than her. Not the giant lanky idiot, yet.

Dani smiles back at Grace.

Still an idiot.

\---

Terminators don’t come until they start going after Legion.

It gets a hell of a lot worse from there.

\---

They scrap together wasted terminators. Reverse engineering their tech.

The Augment trials start.

All volunteers. All of them, practically dying. All of them willing to give up their bodies like organ donors.

All of the first ones die.

Dani rages in her bunk.

(She doesn’t hear Grace outside her door.)

\---

With actual food and nutrition packed bars, Grace shoots up like a weed. Her stunted puberty from malnutrition goes into over drive.

One day, after coming back from a week long mission to scout for survivors across what used to be Texas, Dani comes back to Grace being a full two heads taller than her.

“Wow!” Dani shouts as Grace finds her and pulls her into a hug. “You got…tall.”

Grace smirks. “I’d always been taller than you.”

Dani scowls, shaking her head at Grace’s laughter.

She’s looking more and more like her Grace.

\---

“What are you doing?”

Grace and Sergeant Lee step back from their locked arms on the mat.

Lee holds his head up high. “Commander.”

“What the hell were you doing?” Dani advances on him.

Lee twitches, but stands his ground. “Training, sir.”

“Did I give you authorization to train soldier?”

“No sir.”

“Don’t,” Grace slides in front of Dani. “I asked him to.”

Dani’s ire turns to Grace. She gives Lee one last pointed look. “Get out.”

Lee takes a look at Grace before heading off, behind Dani’s back he mouths ‘good luck’ to Grace.

“I know you’re mad.”

Dani fumes. That is an understatement. She pokes at Grace’s chest. “The fuck were you thinking?”

Grace doesn’t step back. “That I want to be prepared when a fucking terminator comes!”

“You can—“

“What? There’s nothing to do but to survive Dani. You of all people know that!”

“You don’t have to do this. There’s other things you can do.”

“I want to fight.”

“You’ll die.”

“We all die.”

Dani wants to scream. Stubborn idiot.

Maybe that’s both of them.

Grace tilts her head, earnest. “Please.”

“Fuck.” Dani rubs her face. “Fuck. Fine. But I’m doing the training, and if you die on me, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Grace nods, smile breaking through. “Thank you.” She takes Dani’s hand, squeezes it gently. “Thank you.”

Dani shakes her head, she should be the one thanking Grace.

Fucking idiot.

\---

Dani makes training grueling, even worse than what Sarah made her go through.

Maybe if she does, then Grace would give up.

Wishful thinking.

Maybe in the Before, Grace would’ve tapped out and gone running back home.

But there is no home now. Nothing but here.

And Grace takes it all. Every fall, every punch, every bruise.

“Okay now do 100 more,” Dani says, watching as Grace grunts with her pushups.

Grace teeters, she could flop down now and call it quits. She goes down, and comes back up.

“One,” Dani counts.

Grace’s lanky arms build definition. Dani almost imagines the white scares running through them. She shakes her head as Grace falls.

“Okay, you’re done.”

“No!” Grace groans, sliding her hands back under. “I can do it.”

“You’re done.”

“I can do it—“

“Grace.” Dani puts her hand on her arm. “Stop.”

“A terminator won’t stop!” Grace rolls to her side, eyeing the row of angry red stitches on Dani’s brow. A close call. Lee had pulled Dani back in time before the bullet could lodge into her head.

Lee’s still down in the infirmary. He volunteered to become an Augment as he laid in a pool of his blood.

Dani didn’t let it happen.

She wants full consent. Not some battlefield adrenaline fueled decision.

“And you can’t stop them with just these.” Dani pokes her bicep. “Impressive yes.”

Grace scoffs, trying to lift her arm to swat Dani’s hand. It flops down instead.

Dani kneels, digging her thumbs into the abused muscles.

Grace reddens, and looks away.

Dani massages deep, to help the blood flow so she won’t get locked muscles.

\---

“Sir, Camp 4 and 5 aren’t responding.”

Dani hurries to communications, Grace always two steps behind her.

“What happened?”

“There’s no response.”

Dani looks at the map, they’re the furthest camps. Ones that should’ve been _safe_. She glances at Grace, camps that she would’ve sent Grace to.

“What used to be there?” Grace asks, pointing at the maps.

“Factories.”

“We need people down there. Now.” Dani doesn’t wait. “Get Trap one and two ready.”

Dani’s already down the halls to the garages when she sees Grace out of the corner of her eye, getting strapped into gear.

“What—“

“I’m going.”

“No.”

“I’m—“

Dani pulls her down by the vest, making them eye level. “No.” She pushes Grace back. “You’re not trained for battlefield, you don’t even have a squad. You’re staying here. And that’s an order.”

Grace grits her teeth, eyeing the guard who’s paying attention to their argument. “Yes commander.”

And Dani leaves, watching Grace pace on the ground as the aircraft lifts off.

\---

The camps are fine.

Everything just got knocked out.

Dani has them look inside the factories surround the area, one more fortified than most stands in the middle between the camps.

Except all the terminators there are dead.

EMP.

But they didn’t do it. So is there another resistance?

No.

Inside the factory, they find that it’s much worse.

\---

“Time traveling?” Grace mutters, blinking. “They can do that?”

“Yes.” Dani watches her crew haul the empty husks of terminators being carted in. They took as much as they could. It will help their research.

“But why?”

Dani clenches her fists. She can’t let Grace know.

“Dani.” Grace presses her hand against her elbow.

Dani squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s not important. Right now, what’s important are those things.” Dani gestures to the cargo.

Lee is going to get his Augment.

\---

He survives.

The tech is crude.

Dani figures the first prototype would always be. They don’t have flexible armor for the skin, not yet, R&D is still developing that.

He now has terminator metal bones. One eye a glowing red.

He wears sunglasses indoors to not scare anyone.

But everyone knows.

Some fear him. Some are disgusted. And some are in awe.

Grace is at the corner of the training room when he displays his newly developed strength. He punches through solid cement. He bleeds.

“Damn,” Lee laughs, shaking his hand, the blood droplets spattering on the rubble.

He feels no pain.

He doesn’t _feel_ anymore.

A week later, Dani kneels beside him. He’s huddled in a corner, watching the flex of his hands, the skin healing.

“I’m sorry.”

Lee doesn’t look at her.

She stays by him all night.

He dies in a raid a week later.

Dani wonders if it was suicide.

He saves the camp, minimal casualties.

The Augment trials keep going.

\---

“I want to be on the field.”

Grace barges into Dani’s office.

Dani looks up, shoulders tense. They stare. Dani finally shakes her head, shoulders sagging.

“Okay.”

Grace rises through the ranks fast. Of course she would, she’d been hand trained by Dani.

Still, she worries as she watches the aircraft lift off on Grace’s first mission.

It’s a simple recon.

It’s never simple.

Grace comes back, battle worn, her eyes wild.

Dani’s always there when the teams come back.

Grace is shaking, she’s not hurt. Dani checks either way.

“I killed a terminator,” Grace says. She smiles, feral.

Dani pauses. She nods, wipes the smear of dirt and blood on Grace’s cheek. “Good.”

And Grace, puts her hand over Dani’s.

They don’t let go until a medic pulls Grace away.

Dani’s hand burns.

\---

In another year, there’s another EMP shockwave. They’re looking for them now.

She goes on these missions personally.

Dani’s hid the true reason from her soldiers.

They don’t’ have to know yet.

(Grace doesn’t have to know yet).

\---

Another team comes back, badly burned.

Dani signs off on the experimental skin grafting.

\---

“Hey,” Grace says, knocking on her open door.

“Come in,” Dani says, sparing Grace another moment’s glance.

“Here.”

A metal plate with food slides across on top of her maps.

“I still—“

“You need to eat.” Grace pulls up a chair and sits right next to her. “Or I won’t either.”

Dani frowns. “Really?”

“Yup.”

There’s that annoying smirk.

Dani huffs. Taking a bite. “Happy?”

“Not yet, until you finish all of it.”

Sometimes Dani wonders just who’s taking care of who here.

\---

The third EMP shockwave.

Dani relents and lets Grace’s team follow her to the site.

They manage to recover some tech.

Dani powers up the remnants of the computer. Her heart pounds, it’s too soon.

**Destination: Mexico City**

**Date: 2013**

She Breathes.

They take the tech back.

And get ambushed.

Dani can’t remember much.

Glimpses of Grace throwing her away from planted bombs.

Grace shielding her.

Grace….

Dani wakes.

She needs to find Grace.

She punches the doctor who’d saved her. Saved Grace.

It’s too late.

Grace had already gone into surgery.

Volunteered to be an Augment.

\---

“You can’t die for me.” Dani says to a still medically induced comatose Grace. She gingerly touches Grace’s hands, every part still in bandages. “Not again.”

No. This time.

She’s prepared.

This time, she won’t let Grace die.

Dani stands, leans over and presses her lips to Grace’s forehead.

She has a doctor to see.

\---

“But we don’t have—“

“I’ll find it.”

“But why would—“

“Just do it.”

Dani’s tone brokers no challenge.

\---

Dani wakes to the sound of metal crunching.

She jerks up, gun at the ready.

Her eyes acclimate. No terminator in sight.

She wishes there was.

Instead, she sees Grace in the corner of the room, the bed bent in half, the walls splintered where Grace threw herself.

Soldiers pour in and Dani holds her hand up.

“I’m fine.”

She doesn’t spare them a glance as she orders them out.

Dani kneels.

“Hey. Hey it’s okay.” Dani reaches out, touching Grace’s head.

“Don’t!”

Dani holds.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-No. I…I don’t want to hurt you.”

Dani places her hand flat on Grace’s head, soothingly rubbing her hair.

The walls shake at Grace digging deeper.

“I’m sorry,” Dani says.

“I’m not.”

And Dani’s breath hitches.

She doesn’t stop her tears. She leans over, enveloping Grace, holding her.

\---

Grace efficiently goes through the training courses, learning to fight machines like one.

She looks like her Grace.

Dani marvels.

The incisions have healed, the scarring just faint white lines.

Grace staggers at the end and Dani rushes over, stabbing her in the butt with the mix of drugs.

“Ow!” Grace wheezes. “I could’ve gone for longer.”

“But you don’t have to.” Dani pulls the needle away.

“Yea well,” Grace rubs her barely sore ass. “I’m not going to have my own personal medic to stab me in the ass every time I start to stumble.”

Dani bites her tongue. If it’d been up to her, Grace never would’ve had the chance to become this.

“Hey,” Grace touches her knee. “You okay?”

Dani cups her cheek. “Are you?”

Grace freezes, looking lost. A few seconds later she blinks. “Y-Yea. Yea I’m fine.”

“You’re burning up.” Dani puts the back of her hand on Grace’s forehead.

“N-No. I’m good.” Grace sits up and back flips to her feet. “See! Just you know…rebooting? Or whatever.”

Grace is gone by the time Dani could even open her mouth.

Damn speed.

She makes a note to mix up more of the drugs.

\---

The surgery is scheduled.

\---

“Commander…” Grace finds the device, halfway still powered on.

**Destination: Mexico City**

**Date: 2019**

They’ve just run out of time.

“Fuck!” Dani screams.

“Dani…” Grace reaches out, uncaring about the curious glances everyone gives them. “Is this…are they—“

“Trying to kill me? Yes.” Dani paces. “Fuck.”

“There’s still power,” another soldier says. “We have enough to give it another go.”

Grace doesn’t take another second. “I’m going.”

Dani kicks out at the debris. “Fuck.”

“It has to be me.”

Dani shakes her head. No. Not again.

“Dani.” Grace pulls her aside, an illusion or privacy. “Please we don’t’ have time. Tell me what to do.”

Dani pulls her in by the neck. “No.”

“You know it has to be—“

“I know!” Dani presses their foreheads together. “I won’t…I won’t be the same.”

“None of us were.”

“I’ll be scared. Terrified. Everything…You can’t let me know. I won’t be able to handle it.”

Grace nods. “Okay.”

Dani holds out a hand to the medic. “I need a cauterizing pen.” She motions to the rest of the team. “Get it powered up.”

She holds onto Grace’s face, swiping at the tears falling there too. She knows her face mirrors Grace’s. “This is going to hurt.”

She has Grace take off her armor first, pulling up her shirt, and using the pen to etch Carl’s coordinates. She talks Grace through it. “When shit goes sideways, you go here. Okay? Remember that. I don’t’ know…I don’t’ know what it’ll do to your head or if you’ll remember. But go here.”

Grace grunts. “How do you know it’ll go sideways?”

“It always does.”

She has everyone else leave the room as Grace strips down, stepping on the machine.

The lights go on. Dani steps forward, hands out. “I…I love you.”

Grace looks at her, smiling. “I—“

And she’s gone.

\---

She’s had time to solve this, decades.

But organizing a resistance against an all evil AI hell bent on erasing human life took precedent.

Still, she’d imagined every day, how to save Grace.

It shouldn’t be this difficult.

The first was to stop Grace from ever needing to go back.

Fate is running its course.

Dani slams her fists on the table.

Fuck Fate.

\---


End file.
